Saturday, December 31, 2011

Dusting off the wool bits for a fresh new year

Last year around this time I put my hands out onto two nebulous goals for 2011 and they were:

Learn to use my spinning wheel

Knit an Estonian shawl

I have spun some lovely things on that wheel, so - go me! Yes, I gave up on the Estonian shawl before June, but I don't feel bad about it because while I love the heritage behind those pieces I know I would not actually wear one. Also: I just didn't have the right yarn in my stash, and never fell in love with anything appropriate in my various travels. Maybe another year.

There is one last-minute goal that could replace it though... one that occurred to me thanks to the miracle of Ravelry's project pages.

Do you know, I have recorded 49 completed knits there for 2011? Counting the socks I started in December and finished a week into January, which I think is fair because there were so many knit things I started and had to put on hold just shy of finishing, including two me-sized sweaters.

49 things. Plus two more that I didn't record in Ravelry because they were samples for Interweave and Biscotte et Cie respectively and I can't find the pictures I took of them before I sent them off equals 51.

There are 52 weeks in a year, right?

And I have a second sock with just a foot and toe left to knit, at not quite nine-thirty in the morning on New Year's Eve.

Guess what I'm doing today instead of cleaning my desk for a fresh new start to 2012?

Next year's goal:

Make 30 gifts, at least 20 of them before June, so I have time to bake cookies early in December and just enjoy next Christmas! criminy, I'm still recovering from the catchup this year.

I might not knit all of those gifts, because an exciting new sewing machine is coming to my house before next weekend and it will definitely want to play this game. Assuming I can stop hopping and skipping around about it long enough to sit down and use it.

Hope your last day of 2011 is fabulous and that 2012 is much, much better than this one was. Crim.in.y!